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Topic Review (Newest First)

03-18-2013 09:56 AM

flyboyike

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedComet

Cars are inherently a losing proposition.

Apparently that's a fact known littler than previously believed.

03-18-2013 08:19 AM

RedComet

Not too worried about depreciation on my Focus. When it's paid off + I'm done with it, I know exactly how much it's going to be worth: not much. A few grand, like any half decade+ old domestic. Maybe a little more to the right buyer/enthusiast, with a good history and build. Otherwise...good luck.

Cars are inherently a losing proposition.

03-17-2013 09:44 AM

Strix

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arco-Zakus

If you had followed the advice I have mentioned, would you be going through the grief you are now with your 2012 Focus?

I'm not normally one to disagree with Mr. Franklin, but I don't necessarily believe that experience is the best teacher.

In my experience, the worst advice one could receive regarding a 2012 Focus is to take it to the dealership if there is a problem.

I know that's not exactly true, and it doesn't make much sense, because the dealership service department is supposed to fix your car, not ruin it... but that hasn't been my experience.

My point is that everyone's experience is different. Your personal experience hasn't made you as wise as you think. Nor is your personal experience guaranteed to be applicable to the people you are giving (unsolicited) advice to.

I get it. You made some bad decisions regarding new car purchases when you were young and now you're trying to 'help' by clucking your tongue and quoting Ben Franklin and telling all the youngsters how foolish they've been. And you think you should be allowed to do this because you were a foolish youngster once, too! LOL

Some of us, however, are not young and made very informed decisions about what we were purchasing, and how much it was going to cost us in both interest and depreciation. So your Monday morning quarterbacking and 20/20 hindsight is neither useful nor appreciated.

I didn't purchase a house in the great real-estate bubble of the 2000s. I could easily go into home-owners forums and gloat about how clever I am for not being upside-down on a home with an expensive mortgage. I could tell them that their problems are all their own doing and offer 'advice' that was not only never asked for, but that is completely useless to them.

But that would make me a bit of a wanker, don't you think?

03-16-2013 08:12 AM

Arco-Zakus

Condescending?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strix

Could you possibly be any more condescending with your comments on this subject?

That was not my intent. But if that's a request, I could give it a try. "Condescending" implies a "superior attitude". If you were bothered by the Benjamin Franklin quote about fools learning only from their own experience then you must have missed the part where I said that applied to me at least three of the four times I've been through this kind of thing. Or the part about me having been a fool so long I've gotten good at it? Hardly a superior attitude.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strix

People who don't do as you would are foolish children?

How did you get that from what I've said? Some owners with problem cars have have mentioned that they are young or that their 2012 Focus was their first new car purchase. Discovering that a new car isn't always trouble-free just because it is new (just the opposite if it's half-baked) feels like losing a bet (on the resale value) they didn't even know they were making. That's the second part of flyboyike's comment that I said they might disagree with, even if they don't keep it for a long time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flyboyike

Then they're gambling. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

It's one thing to have problems with a new model in its first year (as all manufacturers have had at one time or another), but Ford seems to be making it worse in too many cases with poor service on top of that. There IS something wrong with that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strix

Stupid kids... they should follow the sage advice of their wise and all-knowing Uncle Arco-Zakus. LOL

Could you possibly be any more condescending? If you had followed the advice I have mentioned, would you be going through the grief you are now with your 2012 Focus? I'm sincere in saying it is painful for me to read about what you and others are going through because I've had similar experiences myself. The first time I could blame my inexperience at buying new cars, but I had to face up to my having been fooled as being the reason after that. I'm not making any judgement about which is true in anyone else's case. That's up to you.

Maybe it makes sense to do it that way. Keeps people from knowing for sure what the original word was, which is the reason for the smiley faces in the first place. (Kind of like passwords being harder to crack if the length can vary and is not displayed.)

03-14-2013 07:22 PM

raptor1956

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rogerschro

if it will make people feel better, keep the car 30+ years and it could be worth more than you paid for it as a classic! My $4000 67 Galaxie is worth $8000+ now! (granted, I have probably $15000 invested in it but........ LOL! I never consider depreciation on a car I buy. I look at what I want to drive and what I want to pay for it. Depreciation is a fluid sum on any car and one year might be better than another for any model depending on popularity and reliability issues and just plain fickleness of used car market. There is no guarantee of any good return on any model and a low depreciation number is meaningless if the cars sell for less than stated value, rather like MSRP, it is always at best a guess. Some areas are selling a certain car for a lot more than another area based only on local demand. That is how cars get sold, new or used.

I paid $1500 for a 1971 Mustang Mach I back in 1978 and sold it a year later for about $1000 because it was a maintenance pig. The body was great and looked amazing which is why I bought it. Had I kept it and fixed it up it could be worth 10X or more of what I paid for it.

Regional differences definitely occur. The thing I think of most is body shape and salt. Southern regions that don't have salt will have more cars on the market that aren't rust buckets, which would command a premium in other regions.

Oh yeah,rust belt cars look so different than how they age out here in our very dry climate plus we don't salt our roads in Colorado but we do use sand and mag-chloride but the mag stuff is much easier to clean off the car vs actual salt which gets stuck in places on the frame and propogates rust.

03-14-2013 03:01 PM

flyboyike

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bombadil

I continue to be concerned with the depreciation on the new Focus. I spotted a 2012 Focus SEL today for $13,995. I think it had a fair number of miles on it, around 25,000. But my oh my, that's a lot of depreciation in one year. Makes me wonder what the seller got on trade-in, around $12,500???

If it's an early SEL, it maybe a 4/11 build, so that's really two years of depreciation.

03-14-2013 10:50 AM

asting

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonMaiden

Geographical locations make a difference too. I bought my STI for $32k with only 3800 miles on the odo and could've sold it for $3000 more easily once I brought it back to Colorado and the same will hold as the Subi ages since 2001 WRXs still command a bit of a high price in Colorado. My 4Runner was $33k when new in '99 and I can still get a little over $7000 (have had a couple offers) for it even with 177k miles on it but say down in Florida I probably wouldn't even see near $5000 for it.

Regional differences definitely occur. The thing I think of most is body shape and salt. Southern regions that don't have salt will have more cars on the market that aren't rust buckets, which would command a premium in other regions.

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